


Cipher Day

by Avid Moron (Nevermore9)



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Bonding, Brotherly Love, Bullying, Chaos, Cool Uncle Stan, Demon Deals, Demonic Possession, Double Dippin' AU, Dreams, F/M, Family, Fluff, Forgetting your Nephew's Name, Friendship, Gadgets, Grumpy Uncle, Home, Hunting Demons, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Insecurity, Jealousy, Journals, Laziness, Lonliness, M/M, Mistakes, Mysterious Basement, Poor Dipper, Poor Ford, Revenge, School, Sibling Love, Sibling Rivalry, Sisterly Love, Tension, Tricks, Triplets, Uncle Visits, black magic, stopping the apocalypse, summoning demons, young children
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-23 21:17:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6130354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevermore9/pseuds/Avid%20Moron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Words and names can break Dipper's bones. He never had any friends, outside his siblings, until he met a triangle named Bill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cipher Day

Dipper sloppily wiped away dried tears from his reddened cheeks. He sniffled, and cleared a snot bubble from his nose with the back of his sleeve. He hated the other children of his third grade class, every single one of their stupid smirks; because when they weren't teasing him with names they'd just stare, and most would crack a smile, some would go straight into laughter, and the others would ask why he'd drawn all over his forehead with crayon. And where was Mabel? Where was Tyrone? Neither of his dumb siblings made a movement or said a word, they just stood there, shifting awkwardly, probably hoping no one would notice they're related. He hated it.  
So Dipper ran down to the basement, hiding from everyone and wishing they'd only leave him alone forever, maybe until dinner was ready, if he could last that long. He wasn't allowed in the basement, of course. His Uncle Ford told him time and again about all sorts of dangerous equipment he kept down there, yet never saying what that stuff was for, exactly. Dipper didn't listen though, he liked it in the old concrete basement, loved it; but not for the strange, sciencey things found there. At first, yes, however, there's only so much blinking buttons and colorful, neon beakers a boy could take before the novelty wore off. No, Dipper certainly didn't love his most favorite place in all the world for novelties, he had a friend who was infinitely more important.  
He'd found him when playing around with one of his Uncle Ford's gizmos, pointing it here and there, pretending it was a laser raygun and that Dipper was earth's greatest defender. That's when Bill showed up. At first Dipper thought Bill was just part of his imagination, taking a role in the fantasy, but that changed quickly. Bill spoke, and Dipper realized he'd seen the triangle before, on papers and figures scattered around his uncle's workshop. Ever since then they were friends, Dipper's only friend. Bill would make him laugh with jokes and tricks, and Dipper gave Bill, well, he wasn't quite sure.  
"What's the matter, Big Dipper?" Cipher began, sounding genuinely affectionate, for a split second anyways. "Someone got you feeling blue?" He stretched out his eye so that it glimmered with a cold flame, the same color as the child's glum expression.  
Dipper lifted his head up slightly, cracking the tiniest grin. Bill had the strangest power of being able to cheer Dipper up in minutes, or less. The two certainly were an odd pairing but neither cared to noticed, and besides, that's what Dipper like best about their relationship. Bill Cipher's greatest characteristic, to eight year old Dipper, was his weirdness, and, boy, did Bill have an unlimited supply of that.  
"Hey, what's that in your ear, Piney?" Dipper watched as Bill drew closer, something about his eye making it an intimidating yet humorous experience at the same time. The pyramid reached a black hand to boy's earlobe, appearing to pull an object right out of Dipper's brain. "Hah, a human skull!" Cipher cackled to himself in that high, foolish voice of his. Dipper marvelled at the fact that there was actually an ivory head in Bill's palm, seemingly from nowhere, held up to the glow of thin light like Hamlet. He wondered how the triangle did such things, was that really his skull!? Nevertheless, Dipper found himself laughing along as Bill crushed the bones into literal dust before his eyes, evaporating the remnants into a fiery blue smoke.  
"You're crazy, Bill." Dipper exclaimed with a sing-song tone, not once breaking his growing smile. The triangle's pupil grinned back.  
"What's your point, kid? Insanity's just another word for fun!"  
Dipper's happy face suddenly shrunk, flipping into an inverted expression of the lightheartedness felt moments before. He scowled at the furthest corner, thinking back to mocking sneers and pointing fingers. "I wish everyone knew that." He muttered, not even intending it for his friend, not noticing how it registered to the triangle's uplifted delight, giving him a scheming quality.  
"Something on your mind?" Bill pressed enthusiastically, hardly letting it sound like a real question. He motioned around Dipper's head in half an ellipse, rapping his tiny knuckles on the boy's noggin, slyly picking his brain. "Maybe several children you want to make into mutes?"  
Little Dipper looked up to Bill curiously. His friend's voice was slowly taking on a drastic undertone of aggression. It unnerved him in a way he hadn't know with Bill before. He wouldn't want anyone to be seriously hurt, only to feel his own pain, allow them to occupy his shoes, but nothing more. Bill went on, listing things that genuinely tempted Dipper, left him feeling jealous. He did deserve something. Maybe if he picked just one.  
"A brother's love? Sister's? Parent's attention? An uncle's visit? An uncle's journal!?"  
"I dunno-"  
Cipher's triangular gold buzzed with white noise, taking on the fuzzy static of an untuned television. "Think, Pinetree, isn't it time someone did a little something for you? I could fix that for you." Images flashed rapidly across Bill's levitated form like a repeating slideshow of Dipper's worst life events. Tyrone stealing his piece of cake on their sixth birthday, Mabel ruining his first bike with glitter and pink paint, his parent's leaving on Christmas. Dipper could feel the same dislike he held for the children of his class bubbling around in his brain. "Maybe just one."  
Bill Cipher's iris set instantly aflame with a blue glow. "There's the spirit!" He cried joyously, desperately, holding out a hand which begged to be shaked. Dipper reached reluctantly for it after the constellation of the Big Dipper made a mocking appearance in Bill's single eye. Fire danced in Cipher's palm, playing shadows about the basement like a winter storm, and gripping it burned Dipper's skin with a frosty bite. He hadn't fully winced before color went dull, the world transforming into an old film. Symbols flashed in front of Dipper's vision, spinning on an illuminated wheel. Ice, spectacles, a shooting star; then in a bright blip the basement was restored, light was as it was. Dipper blinked, once, then twice. He craned his neck here and there, no Bill. 

Tyrone spotted a dazed looking brother slinking out from the hard wooden basement door at a stumble. He paused in his tracks and stared, wondering what his older bro, by five minutes, was getting up to. After years of being told on by Mabel, Tyrone had learned that when people were doing something they weren't supposed to it never winded up well.  
"Hey, Dip." Eight year old Tyrone greeted his brother with a discreet air of suspicion. The other boy had pratically leaped out his skin, bones and all, causing Tyrone to lift up an eyebrow to his brother in question. Dipper quickly turned, beaming a smile that showed he clearly had something to hide. Though it gradually dropped at Tyrone's hands situating themselves sassily on his hips, giving the notice to his brother that he knew what was afoot. Dipper smirked hopefully. "Please don't tell, Ty."  
"Don't worry, loving brother o' mine." Tyrone gleamed, setting up his best pearly white grin. "I won't tell, mmkay?"  
"Uh-huh." Dipper nodded flatly, tongue in his cheek, this was the part where Ty usually stated the conditions of their abrupt agreement. There was always a catch with Tyrone, if he wasn't the greatest brother the whole wide world had to give Dipper would barely trust him.  
Reading his mind, as he tended to do, Tyrone frowned at his triplet's sketicism. "I mean it, Dippy." He said surely, with a proud puff of his chest, the pet names having no limit. "You're secret's safe with me." He concluded, swiping two fingers across his lips, sealing them up, locking them tight, and throwing away the key.  
Dipper, buying his siblings promises, for the time being, signaled agreement in a short, firm nod, holding out his hand as if to close a business deal. Tyrone put his hand there, holding his brother just a bit too tightly, shaking up and down twice, for good measure. His hand was noticeably sticky, a mystery Dipper thought would be better not to solve, and the whole arrangement was pretty awkward, but the way that the duo locked their chocolate eyes together made each believe they really did close a deal of some sort. Now all Tyrone had to do was find out what was going on.  
After Dipper and his little handshake, Tyrone made way for the livingroom, Dipper hightailing it upstairs. There, Ty knew he'd find his great uncle Ford passed out on the sofa in a comatose state, his program of Fake Science Weekly shown on the Used To Be About History Channel would be playing across the television screen like every other day. Tyrone's predictions didn't disappoint.  
"Uncle Ford." Tyrone called softly, shaking the old, drooling man, slumped to the side, by the shoulder, catching the pungent smell of the sort of drinks his father said he was too young to taste. Ford snorted, followed by a deep groan as he came to. He adjusted his glasses, looking here and there with cloudy eyes, and smacked his lips together groggily, almost gagging at the taste in his mouth. Then Ford saw his nephew, one or the other, cutely leaning over the arm of the sofa, gazing up at him with big, curious, child's eyes. Ford liked curiosity, despite its reputation for killing unfortunate felines, intelligence was the balance for that. If there was one trait of a child that could be admired it certainly was their unmatched curiosity.  
"Hey, Kiddo." Stanford said trying to surpress an embarassing hiccup. "Whatcha up to, Dip-Dipper? Right? Yeah, your definitely Dipper." He smiled.  
"I'm Tyrone." The boy replied calmly, having dealt with his scatter brained, and tipsy, uncle often enough to have frustration or insult go straight out the window. He couldn't even muster up the care to sigh anymore. Well, perhaps his mistaken identity would come in handy some day, he hoped.  
"Of course. Of course!" Ford scolded himself sharply, wagging his finger. "How could I forget my favorite Tyroney-Balogney? I was only messing with ya." He winked, keeping hold of the smile, though his act was lost on Tyrone who didn't expect much more from the man. Talks with Uncle Ford regularly should be taken with a grain of doubt.  
"So what can I do ya for, Bud?"  
Tyrone tapped his chin, devising the cleverest way to pose his question. Finally, he settled on a happy "Can I go to the basement!?"  
Immediately Ford's kind, grandfatherly, attitude turned upside down. His wrinkled face was gruff and mean. "No!" He snapped bluntly, sending Tyrone shrinking two sizes in his little socks.  
"B-But," Ty timidly stuttered. He was trying to pull himself together, though it was a sloppy job, fighting back tears. He felt like crying, he'd never seen this side of his uncle before. Honestly, he was afraid. "My ball fell, the door was open and it bounced down the stairs!" Tyrone explained, making up the best lie he could on short notice. "I want it."  
Cold eyes narrowed on tiny Tyrone, seeming to see right through him. For a moment Ty thought he was done for, cover blown, he was shaking so much he could hardly stand flat on his feet; yet, Ford merely turned stiffly away. "I'll get it then!" He commanded, the anger punctuating his tone of voice serving as a warning to Tyrone's ears: Don't go down into the basement! The boy's plan was a mess, definitely, Tyrone concluded, a failure. He'd have to try some other way.

Mabel sat on the edge of her pink, sparkly bed, consoling her hysterical little brother, by five minutes, after he'd come bursting into her room, nearly sobbing and whining something about a friend and what to do. She gently pet her fingers through his brunette head of hair lying on her lap, tracing the dots of his birthmark forming the Big Dipper on his forehead. She felt too much like a mom doing this, or at least what she'd seen a mom was supposed to do, her own mother never providing her such comforts. Though, if Mabel ever was a mom she would prefer to be Dipper's. He had always seemed to need special attention, unlike Tyrone who could prance about on his own like a pony, Dipper needed nurturing. Mabel was nurturing.  
Dipper rolled over on the girly bed, enjoying the attention of fingers caressing his skin, as one would scratch a puppy. A sigh hit the air, giving Dipper's confusion an audible quality. He was nervous, scared even. Where in the world had Bill gone?  
"Better, Dipster?" Mabel cooed, resting a pat on her brother's shoulder.  
Dipper turned to match eyes with his loving sister. He wondered if, looking at him, she saw the same eyes. "Hey, Mabel?"  
"Yeah?"  
"Who would you pick: Me or Tyrone? If you had to?" He posed tentatively. Something insecure lingered in his question.  
Mabel chuckled, ignoring the seriousness of it. "Hah! That's like trying to choose ice cream or cheesecake! I mean, both have their perks. Ice cream's cold, hard at first, but melts right in your mouth, it's also really sweet. Cheesecake, its all over the place, savory, fun, it's two things at the same time. That's impossible, Dip. Though they do have one thing common."  
"What?"  
Mabel smirked, knowing he's fallen in her trap. "They're both the best brothers in the world!" She shouted, sending a hundred tickles to Dipper's defenseless armpits. He was instantly puddy in her hands, free to be molded here and there, laughing uncontrollably everywhere. Poor Dipper was an instant away from peeing his pants when Mabel decided to show some mercy. Still, she cackled to herself, taking evil pleasure in torturing her brother.  
Dipper huffed, desperate to catch his breath. "So which one am I?" He said, almost out of air.  
"Definitely ice cream."  
An affection smile crept over Dipper's reddened cheeks. He opened his mouth to say something, planning to make it about Bill, or at least disguise it so he could get a sliver of advice. Mabel knew lots more about people and what not than Dipper could ever know, despite how silly she may come off. Any of her words would help, maybe stop the fear churning in his gut; but anything he may have been thinking died on his tongue. The slam of a car door sounded outside, and a second later Tyrone's gleeful squee resonated throughout the house. "IT'S GRUNCLE STAN!"


End file.
